Most recent work...
CREATIVITY AND THE HAY SCHOOL OF FASHION
Written by Meredith Bean with Photography by Sarah Huntington and Modeling by Actor /Model Suzy Alden In 1947, Virginia Hay opened the Hay School of Fashion in St. Louis, Missouri. She worked from her home - her only marketing tools: word of mouth and thimbles with the company name and address. For the next 35 years, Virginia created original designs, won fashion design awards, taught classes, submitted costumes for the St. Louis Veiled Prophet Ball and other costume contests and had her daughters and she wear her creations to advertise her work. In a 1972 interview for the St. Louis Globe Democrat, she was pleased to say, “I’ve taught husbands and wives who either want to sew for each other or to help the family budget. And I’ve taught working girls in my night classes who want a variety of dresses they couldn’t afford if they had to buy them". Her books on sewing include The New Basic SECRETS OF SEWING from the Virginia Hay Sewing System, New Method of PERSONAL FITTING (of patterns), Are You the Boss of your Sewing Machine? (sewing methods), Pressing is an Art, The Inside Story (about linings and interlinings), and 57 Shortcuts in Home Sewing. And she was my Grandmother. I wrote this book in her honor alongside photographs of the amazing dresses I inherited from her. |
Creativity and the Hay School of Fashion was published alongside an article in Middleburg, Virginia's ZEST Magazine, spring 2023: Designing Woman Keeps it All in the Family.
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